Drawing from the deep well of documentary film on the Delta blues by ethnographers Bill Ferris, Alan Lomax and others, University of North Carolina student filmmakers Ali Colleen Neff and Brian Graves sought to document contemporary practitioners of Delta musical traditions. Neff, a UNC Folklore M.A. student who has been working with hip-hop, blues and gospel artists in the Delta since 2004, invited Jerome Williams (A.K.A. Top Notch the Villian), a Mississippi hip-hop artist, to collaborate on the half-hour piece, which follows Top Notch through the Delta’s cultural landscape.

Filmed over the course of a summer in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Let the World Listen Right provides insight into the rich musical interactions of the Mississippi Delta while documenting the dreams and struggles of young people in the region today. The piece is tied together with hip-hop performances by Top Notch and Da Fam as well as performances by blues artist Terry "Big T" Williams and gospel singer Martha Raybon.

Folklorist Ali Neff prepared the pop-up notes in the transcript . We recommend that you open the transcript and scroll through it as you watch the film.

An excellent film reflecting a contemporary freestyle hip-hop artist drawing from the traditional Delta blues. In the lives of TopNotch the Villain, Da FAM, and the blues and gospel singers in the film, we see a compelling portrait of contemporary music in the Mississippi Delta.
--- William R. Ferris, Folklorist, filmmaker, author and Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill